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No matter how vivid the photos or descriptive the lecture, there’s nothing quite like seeing and experiencing another country in person. And, in today’s increasingly global business climate, it’s vital that students be versed in the culture and business practices of international partners. There is much to be learned from seeing how others do it. That’s why, every year, students in the Plastics Engineering Technology program have the opportunity to travel overseas to visit plastics companies and universities and attend a plastics trade show, too.

Eleven students recently returned from a ten-day trip to Sweden and Denmark. We asked them to send us some photos and tell us about their journey. In this blog post, we pick up with the students on Day 8. (You can read the first week of their trip here.)

Day 8 – Thursday, October 22nd

After breakfast, we had a long train ride from Gotenborg to Stockholm during which we were able to admire the beautiful countryside of Sweden. Once we arrived, we made our way to our hostel along the Riddarfjärden bay. We then had the evening to scout out the different places that we wanted to visit and find a local restaurant for some classic Swedish cuisine.

Day 9 – Friday, October 23rd

On Friday, we took the train to SSAB Steel Mill for a presentation and tour of their facility. The presentation discussed the advantages their tool steels provide over more commonly used materials, including their high strength and hardness properties. Touring the mill was an eye-opening experience. The size of the equipment required to manufacture the steel itself was overwhelming. Rolling the hot steel slabs caused the entire room to shake and we could feel the heat from about 20 yards away. After the tour, we rode the train back to central Stockholm to spend the rest of the night exploring the city.

Day 10 – Saturday, October 24th

Saturday was our opportunity to explore the historic sites in Stockholm. During breakfast we used our city and bus maps to plan our events for the day. The events included touring the Vasa Museum (a museum dedicated to a salvaged warship), exploring the Royal Palace, and roaming the scenic streets of “Old Town.” We were also able to visit some of the local shops in search of souvenirs. Our evening consisted of a final dinner together at a local restaurant, followed by dessert at a near by ice cream shop. We ended our day back at our hostel where we began packing for the journey home.

“Old Town”

Royal Palace

Vasa Museum

Day 11 – Sunday, October 25th

We ended our final day in Stockholm with a group breakfast at our hostel before hauling our luggage and souvenirs to the train station for the last time. After arriving at the airport, we chose to spend the last few hours reminiscing on our experiences as we browsed through each other’s pictures. Though we all enjoyed our time traveling overseas, by the last day we were glad to be on our way home so that we could share the stories of our experiences with our friends and family.

In recognition of Women’s History Month, we’d like to introduce you to just a few of the dynamic women in Penn State Behrend’s history. Our college has a rich history of leadership and involvement by strong, forward thinking, and generous women. Each Monday in March, we’ll highlight a woman who has made, or is currently making, her mark on the college.

The first female member of Penn State Behrend’s engineering faculty is remembered as a gregarious Renaissance woman with many interests, chief among them a deep affection for her Irish heritage.

In 1960, Mildred Doherty—“Mid” to her friends— arrived on a campus so thinly staffed that the infirmary nurse doubled as the bookstore manager. Doherty brought a unique skill set for a woman of her generation, having worked as a technical writer, a civilian supervisor for the U.S. Air Force, and as head of the U.S. Signal Corps’ examination and evaluation section for radar operations. But gender wasn’t an issue, according to a faculty colleague. “No one was concerned that she was a woman teaching engineering, because Mid laid down the law for her students,” Ed Masteller, professor of biology emeritus, said. “I think that was her military background. She had specific expectations about the way things should be done.”

Doherty’s all-business comportment must have been contained within Otto Behrend Science, because among her contemporaries she is universally remembered for her infectious sense of merriment, passion for travel and genealogy, and can-do attitude. “My husband and I loved her because she was a fun girl, a really fun girl,” says retired physical education instructor Irene Edwards. “She was so interesting, and just a delight to be around.”

Although Doherty lived in a small Behrend family-era cabin near what is now Lilley Library during the week, she entertained at her home in Centerville, a farmhouse originally owned by her Irish grandparents. Masteller and his wife, Marianna, would make the trip to Crawford County for picnics, potlucks, and book clubs; Mary Turner, a distant cousin of Doherty’s, says she vividly remembers a summer party that ended in fireworks.

Doherty’s annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration would start with Mass at Immaculate Conception Church of Mageetown. (Doherty’s mother’s family, the Magees, had founded both the church and community.) After that came the ‘tin band,’ a boisterous parade of revelers who walked back to Doherty’s home for dinner and Irish coffee. “We’d march with kettles and spoons, banging and making noise and having a great time,” Edwards says.

After her retirement, Doherty’s passions were traveling to visit family and friends and researching the genealogy of the Doherty and Magee families. She created a small museum space within Immaculate Conception to display artifacts related to the area’s early Irish Roman Catholic settlers and cataloged and mapped the graves in the church’s cemetery, where she was buried following her death in April 1985.

More About Mildred

Born: October 7, 1909, in Franklin.

Education: 1926 graduate of Oil City High School; 1932 graduate of Saint Xavier College (now University) in Chicago with a B.S. in mathematics and minors in chemistry and physics.

According to Irene Edwards, Doherty said she was able to attend college only because of significant scholarship support. “She would take the bus back and forth from Oil City to Chicago. I remember her very funny stories about that. It was always an adventure, but then she was an adventurous critter.”

Continuing education: Also studied at St. Louis University, Grove City College, Clarion University, and the University of Houston.

Career detour: Doherty left the U.S. Signal Corps to care for her aging parents. During that time she worked as the librarian at Titusville High School.

A word from her niece: “Aunt Mid was the one person—and I’ve never met another person like her—who never said anything bad about anybody,” says Nancy Cotter, daughter of Mildred’s sister Margaret. “Never negative. No gossip. That was something I really admired about her.”

A warm send-off: For her retirement in 1970, Doherty’s Behrend colleagues bought her Centerville home’s first furnace. She threw a furnace-warming party and had all the guests sign their name on the unit.

One of the Science Olympiad’s stated goals is “to create a passion for learning science.” If the organization is looking for an ambassador, it need not look any further than Gary Fye.

Fye, a first-year Biomedical Engineering major at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, was a volunteer judge at the regional Science Olympiad held at Behrend this March.

More than 400 students from thirty-three area school districts competed in forty-six science-related events. Among the participating schools was North Clarion High School, which happens to be Fye’s high school alma mater.

From grades seven through twelve, Fye participated in the Science Olympiad. In fact, he took first place in at least one event every year but ninth grade.

“The time just never seemed to last long enough,” Fye said. “It was something I really, really enjoyed.”

That enjoyment is still present today. Although Fye was at home in Leeper, Pa., for spring break, he traveled on a bus with his former high school just so he could volunteer his time at the Science Olympiad.

Experimental Design, the event Fye judged, had participants experiment with a springboard and then propose a hypothesis based on that experiment. Experiments like this are what helped pique Fye’s interest in science and engineering years ago.

“It broadens your horizons. You really get a feel for lab work,” he said.

After attending his first Science Olympiad, Fye’s interest in science only grew. In middle school and early high school, he was appropriately nicknamed “Gary Fye the Science Guy.” The name referred to Fye’s love of science, but it was also a word play on Bill Nye, who was the host of the popular PBS children’s show “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” Fye also happened to be a big fan of Nye, which made the nickname an even better fit.

The Science Olympiad influenced Fye in another way as well. The event exposed him to Penn State Behrend.

“I would actually put that as one of the number one reasons as to why I’m here at Behrend,” Fye said. “It definitely introduced me to engineering concepts.”

Vee Butler was in search of a draw. She needed to find a speaker capable of filling the house.

“I just saw (Bill Nye’s) name and I thought, ‘What do ’90s kids like more than bonding with other ’90s kids about ’90s things?’ It seemed perfect,” said Butler, a junior arts administration major and executive director of the Lion Entertainment Board at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.

A jam-packed, standing-room only crowd of almost 2,000 squeezed into Junker Center at Penn State Behrend Wednesday evening to watch Nye as part of the college’s Speaker Series. Nye hoped to inspire students to change the world, but it’s clear he’s already done his fair share of inspiring.

It’s been 15 years since a new episode of the PBS television show “Bill Nye the Science Guy” has been produced, but the effects of the show are still evident today.

Sophomore chemistry major Joshua Wilkins said Nye’s show actually inspired him to pursue a science degree. He was more than a little excited when he heard that Nye would be visiting Behrend.

“Ever since I found out he was coming, it’s been in the back of my mind,” Wilkins said. “It’s been a highlight of my year.”

Zany phrases, wacky experiments and quirky music were par for the course on “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” which is one reason Nye believes it continues to be successful.

“This is an extraordinary claim, and I do not have extraordinary proof of this, but there’s a lot of entertainment there,” Nye said. “The show was information-packed and fun to watch.”

However, even Nye is at a loss for words when he hears of how the show has inspired lives.

“I say all the time that I don’t think I get it,” Nye said. “People come to me and say, ‘You’re the reason I became an engineer. You’re the reason I’m a scientist,’ and I’m like, ‘What?’ It amazes me.”